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Monday, May 23, 2016

Fire Department Conducts Joint Training on Tactical EMS

It seems like every day we turn on the news there is yet another report on an active shooter incident somewhere in the United States. While no one wants to believe that this will happen in their jurisdiction, unfortunately, the reality is that this event could happen anywhere at any time.

Recently members from the Village of Bellevue Fire Department and the Brown County Sheriff’s Office conducted a joint training on tactical EMS response for this very situation. Protocols in the past have called for EMS personnel to stage away from the scene until police have confirmed that the building is clear. Clearing the building can take quite a bit of time, time that the victim/patient does not have. This is a lesson learned from the shooting at the Los Angeles International Airport where a patient sat for 33 minutes without EMS care and unfortunately did not survive. This is unacceptable and agencies are looking at how to prevent this from happening again.

One important step to preventing this is to conduct joint training like the one recently conducted. The objective of the training was to simulate exactly how EMS and Police would coordinate a successful extrication of a patient in an active shooter situation. Key items the participants trained on were different verbal commands/communications, techniques on entry into the area, areas of vulnerability, patient packaging (preparing the patient to be moved), applying tourniquets, and patient removal. This training is the first of more to come in order improve efficiency if this event were ever to occur in our community. A special thanks goes out to DEO Deputy Trevor Bilgo and DEO Deputy Matt Omdahl for leading and participating in the training with Village employees.